Laboratory specimens primarily consist of samples of human physiological fluids or solids which are submitted to specialized laboratories, such a clinical laboratories, to be examined and tested. Specimens must be labeled and otherwise identified in an unambiguous manner to ensure that the proper tests and analyses are performed on a given specimen and the results properly reported.
In general, it has been the practice to identify a laboratory specimen container with two different labels. One of these labels commonly consists of a paper having a contact adhesive backing with an associated release paper covering the adhesive. This label is ordinarily marked with the patient's name and other identifying information, and placed on a convenient surface of the specimen container. A second labeling means is also employed, this commonly referred to as the laboratory order slip. Such laboratory order slips ordinarily consist of a number of duplicate slips of paper attached at a common end into a pad, and include some means to reproduce information written on the top-most slip in multiple copies on the sheets therebelow. For example, the laboratory slip would ordinarily provide information concerning the patient, as well as directions as to the test to be performed, space for recording the test results, and routing instructions for the test results. Multiple tear-off copies are provided to facilitate record keeping, copies of a slip ordinarily going to the physician, the laboratory doing the testing, an accounting or billing department, etc. Generally, each hospital, laboratory or clinic has its own customized slips.
It is the common practice to simply attach the laboratory slips to the specimen container by means of rubber-bands, common tape, and many times, through the use of the adhesive label previously described.
In larger hospitals, clinics and laboratories, hundreds of specimens may be collected and processed daily. Specimens are ordinarily collected in shallow wide-mouth containers with snap-on or screw-on lids, and in laboratory-type test tubes which may have closures such as rubber stoppers or snap-on or screw-on type lids.
The filled specimen containers are typically allowed to pile up, and are bunched into batches for transport to a preliminary sorting station or directly to the testing area. Specimen filled containers transported in this manner are oftentimes in a jumbled state, with many containers upside-down or on their sides. Although the orientation of the specimen during transport would not ordinarily matter, a significant problem results when one or more of the containers has not been properly closed. For instance, many of the specimens contained in the wide-mouth type containers are ordinarily collected by the patient. Since the general run of such specimens would constitute urine or feces, patients collecting their own specimens may not correctly or firmly secure the top of the container. In other instances, the container itself may be defective.
There are thus numerous instances in which the container leaks thereby soaking the labels of the leaking specimen container as well as other specimen containers in the transported lot, with the result that identifying or directional information is obliterated and other specimens subject to contamination. In addition, those individuals having to handle leaking or leaked upon specimen containers may be exposed to pathological materials, or at the minimum, an unpleasant condition. It consequently follows that if specimen containers were kept in an upright condition during transport, the problem of leakage through such spillage could be substantially eliminated.
The present haphazard system in which laboratories affix the laboratory order slips to the specimen containers does not promote such upright travel, and in fact leads to the jumbled transport previously described. This is largely caused by wrapping or otherwise attaching the relatively bulky laboratory slips directly around the specimen container. Further, laboratory slips haphazardly attached to the specimen containers may become disassociated from a specific container, resulting in additional effort to associate the container with the laboratory slips, and perhaps failure to properly identify a specific container. When identifying information is destroyed or the sample contaminated, some effort will necessarily be required in re-identifying the patient as well as additional effort expended in recollecting the specimen, if possible.
Other problems inherent in the current labeling practice involve difficulties with removing or breaking rubber bands which may be employed as the attaching means, since the the rubber bands can jar loose the cover of the container leading to spillage or contamination.
There is thus a definite need in the industry, and the medical industry in particular, for a label which solves the problems presented by the current system of container labeling, specifically the labeling of laboratory specimens.